Be Wary of the Next Great Thing

I tend to be skeptical about praising the Next Great Thing. Maybe that’s because I’m a fan of proven great things like public libraries, holding hands, and peace accords. Or maybe it’s because our house is falling apart.

It seems that back in the late 70’s when the house was built the U.S. began to notice something called an energy crisis. The price of gas had gone from 36 cents to 86 cents (yes, a gallon) in just a few years. Heating oil, natural gas, and electricity cost more. People realized their homes were leaking lots of nice warm air all winter long and suddenly everyone wanted insulation. The newer the product the better. Some advertisements practically guaranteed their insulation would seal homeowners in all winter with nothing but each other’s exhale for air. Every product was the Next Great Thing.

I can imagine what happened when the contractor slapped our house together. Surely he (statistically speaking it was a he) promoted the house as featuring the very newest extra thick rigid insulation. But construction workers performing the actual hands-on work didn’t have longer nails or an interest in compensating for that thickness.

Fast forward a few decades. After years of repairing foundation cracks, water damage, and worse we realize that our front and back porches are ready to falloff the house. That’s because in some areas, the beams holding up the porch rails, supports, and roof are only NAILED INTO THE INSULATION. Many nails never quite made it into the actual wood meant to connect porch to house. In fact, the Next Great Thing insulation was applied to the exterior of the house in such a way that it trapped rainwater and rotted the wood. That these porches held up many feet of snow and ice winter after winter is some kind of scientific marvel. That they remained attached to the house at all, another marvel.

So next time you flip past one of those home repair shows, all of which should be subtitled “Look What Money Can Do,” notice that they’re often designed around new products promoted as the Next Great Thing. (You’re basically watching a program-length advertisement.) Composite countertops made from dust epoxied together by hype. Lighting bouncing off reflectors that look like aluminum foil hats worn by the UFO-wary. Heated floorboards with inaccessible heating units. These products may be great. They may not. I think any hairspray host with a tool belt could convince awed homeowners that toilets constructed from celery trimmings are the Next Great Thing and they’d spend thousands on them. Happily.

Fortunately we discovered the porch problem in time. Added to the known blessings of public libraries, holding hands, and peace accords we now add the security that comes with newly sturdy porches.

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4 thoughts on “Be Wary of the Next Great Thing”

Oh, the joys of discovering that the asset in which you have invested your future income for the next 25 year is crumbling faster than you can fix it. Or that the maniac you bought it from did most of his own electrical work and your covered patio (steel beams and roof) is in danger of going live when that wonky bit of wiring finally gives way… I hear you!

Already done… We had an electrician in to add some lighting, and he came to find us white and shaking, having discovered the full horrors! Let’s just say the previous owner of the house was a better fisherman than he was home handyman…

Laura’s background includes teaching nonviolence, writing collaborative poetry with nursing home residents, facilitating support groups for abuse survivors, and writing sardonic greeting cards. She is currently a book editor. She also leads workshops on memoir, poetry, and creative thinking for Cuyahoga County Public Library, Literary Cleveland, and elsewhere. Her poetry appears in such places as Verse Daily, J Journal, Neurology, Literary Mama, and Penman Review. Her creative nonfiction and essays appear in such places as Wired, MOON Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Praxis, and Under the Gum Tree.

She also blogs optimistically on topics such as learning, creative living, mindfulness, and hope.

Laura lives on a small farm where she works as an editor while also slooowly writing the 17 books she alleges she’ll actually finish.

Although she has deadlines to meet she tends to wander from the computer to preach hope, snort with laughter, cook subversively, ponder life’s deeper meaning, talk to livestock, sing to bees, walk dogs, make messy art, concoct tinctures, watch foreign films, and hide in books.

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